DAVE'S DIARY - 14/10/2019 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 8 - SERIES 41
HIGHWOMEN HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV
New femme fatale super group The Highwomen headline Nu Country TV Saturday November 9 at 9.30 pm on Channel 31/ Digital 44.
Missouri minstrel Sheryl Crow and Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh return to the show, hosted by Mid-Pacific Bob Olson, and repeated Monday at 7.30 am.
Texan troubadour Cooper Wade, Brisbane born Lee Coulter and San Diego damsel Dixie Maxwell debut on the program filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Berwick dual Golden Guitarist Andrew Swift and Echuca born singer-songwriter also return this week.
Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.
Further info - https://www.c31.org.au/
HIGHWOMEN REDESIGN CHARTS
The Highwomen soared to top the Billboard Country album charts and Top 10 all genre sales graph with their debut self-titled disc in September.
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The quirky quartet - Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Amanda Shires and Maren Morris - strut their stuff in their energised video for chart climbing single Redesigning Women. It features cameos by gal pals Lauren Alaina, Kassi Ashton, Cam , Lilly Hiatt, Wynonna Judd, Catie Offerman, Cassadee Pope, Erin Rae, Raelynn, Natalie Stovall, Tanya Tucker, Anna Vaus and Hailey Whitters. |
They give new meaning to home delivery, paddock bashing, bonfires and truck driving in the fast lane.
“ Redesigning Women is the life most women are living today. We juggle so much in 24 hours and I wanted to write a song that reflected the goodness, the madness and the hilarity of it all,” Hemby revealed.
The group's album was produced by Dave Cobb for Low Country Sound/Elektra Records.
The Highwomen are joined by diverse guests, vocalists and songwriters.
They include Sheryl Crow (background vocals, bass), Yola (vocals), Cobb (acoustic/electric guitar), Jason Isbell (acoustic/electric guitar), Phil Hanseroth (bass vocals), Tim Hanseroth (guitar vocals), Chris Powell (drums) and Peter Levin (piano-keyboards).
The songs were written by Carlile, Hemby, Morris, Shires, Isbell, Hanseroth twins, Rodney Clawson, Lori McKenna, Miranda Lambert, Ray LaMontagne and peers.
“Anyone can be a Highwoman,” Carlile explained.
“It's about banding together, abandoning as much ego as humanly possible, holding one another up and amplifying other women every chance we get. Shoulder to shoulder. One push, one love.”
Carlile, co-producer of sixty year-old Tanya Tucker's 27th album While I'm Living , and Morris both appear on Sheryl Crow's 11 th album Threads .
Ironically, Kris Kristofferson - one of two surviving Highwaymen members with Willie Nelson, 86, - was touring Australia as The Highwomen topped the charts.
CLICK HERE for a Morris CD feature in The Diary on June 18, 2016.
SHERYL CROW FLIES WITH EAGLES GUITARIST JOE WALSH
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Nine time Grammy winner Sheryl Crow recruited Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh in her video for latest single Still The Good Old Days from her 11th album Threads.
Crow flies to her backyard home tree house with her guitar in a sleek sports car in her riveting road trip.
Threads also features famed Highwaymen Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and the late Johnny Cash.
Walsh's new Eagles band-mate guitarist Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris and Lukas Nelson - one of Willie's three sons - also duet on Threads.
Stevie Nicks and Morris guest on Prove You Wrong - another single about female empowerment.
“Stevie exudes art, she is at all times authentic. She's the sister I don't see enough, but she never leaves my heart,” Crow explained.
"I invited Maren to perform on Prove You Wrong with Stevie and I because she belongs in our club of strong female rockers who tell it like it is.
“This is where my story begins; in the imagination of a young girl from Missouri who began to feel a part of a beautiful and inspiring universe of art, created by musicians who made me want to leave my small town and embark on something bigger than anything I could possibly imagine.
“As I became a mother, I've explored life through my children and seen the greater impact of our actions and voices. This collection is the threads of both my inspirations and younger artists carrying the torch for humanity with their stories.”
Sheryl, 57, dated Eric Clapton and Texan actor Owen Wilson and was engaged to Olympic cyclist Lance Armstrong.
Crow flew those nests and battled cancer & brain tumours at her West Nashville home that also features a popular studio for peers.
Sheryl played Rod Laver Arena with John Mellencamp and Shane Nicholson on November 21, 2008.
CLICK HERE for our web mistress Anne Sydenham's review in our concert section.
CLICK HERE for our feature on Sheryl's 9th album Feels Like Home in the Diary on June 16, 2014.
COOPER WADE BEHIND BARS IN HONKY TONKS
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Houston hombre Cooper Wade performs live on his Behind Bars debut. The father of four towers above 6 ft 3 like fellow Texan and Collingwood ruck-man Mason Cox and cuts loose in a Lone Star State honky-tonk at Montgomery. His video for Middle Of The Second Verse is from second album I Ain't Playing Around that also produced the hit High Time . Wade became a professional country singer after graduating Baylor University with a percussion degree with a minor in piano and voice. |
He now lives in Katy, Texas , and grew up listening to Merle Haggard, George Strait , Charlie Pride, Hank Williams Jr, Don Williams, Conway Twitty and many others.
The multi-instrumentalist played piano at age 6, drums at 12 and guitar at 15 and performs in children's hospitals when not on stage, duck and goose hunting or chasing elusive Texas Whitetail and other exotic deer.
Further info - http://www.cooperwade.com/about.aspx
LEE COULTER AND DIXIE MAXWELL ALSO BEHIND BARS
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Brisbane born singer Lee Coulter and San Diego damsel Dixie Maxwell also debut with a road trip video in Behind Bars . They travelled from mountains to the ocean with honky-tonk and shopping mall pit-stops they brightened up with dancing and trolley tangos in their video You We Me on their debut album Ballad Of The Sexes that was released in May and preceded an Australian tour. Lee and Dixie teamed in Nashville as singer-songwriters a decade ago and honed their craft in cafes, bars and restaurants across the USA . Coulter's soulful folk songs were “discovery of 2011” by Sirius XM's Coffee House channel. He opened for iconic artists Tom Jones and the late Chuck Berry. |
Martin Sexton said: “the world needs more Lee Coulter songs.”
Maxwell's songwriting explores themes of hope, longing and freedom and landed her songs in major movies as she opened for artists such as Andy Grammar.
Further info - http://www.leecoulter.com/
ANDREW SWIFT CUTS LOOSE BALL & CHAIN
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Dual Golden Guitarist Andrew Swift liberates himself from self-doubt and a ball and a chain in his latest video.
The scene of the rhyme for the Berwick singer-songwriter was not Jayco Page Bros RV Seaford caravan park where he toils between concerts.
Jay Seeney filmed Swift and his choral chanteuses swaying and praying in a tiny chapel due south of Sydney
Ball & Chain is the fifth single on Swift's award-winning second album Call Out For the Cavalry.
Swift last appeared on Nu Country with a vivid video inspired by the death of his pilot uncle in a plane crash.
Swift was a child when his uncle died - his song was written about feelings and emotions of losing a loved one in a tragic accident.
He honoured his uncle with King of the Sky - also on Call Out For The Cavalry that won two Golden Guitars in Tamworth in January for best new talent and alt country album.
“I was very close to my uncle when I was a kid, he filled the role of my Dad once my folks split,” Swift revealed.
“He was a pilot and passed away in a crash when I was nine. This song is written around the memory of finding out the news, my reaction, and the haze or fog that comes over you during something like that.”
Swift took breaks from his caravan repairman day job in Seaford for previous videos Fire & Ice, Reckless Desires and Runaway Train.
He also conducts caravan park tours with Kiewa Valley born singer-songwriter Gretta Ziller.
Further info - https://www.andrewswift.com.au/
GARETH LEACH FAMILY UNION
Echuca born singer-songwriter Gareth Leach returns with a powerful video directed by his wife Jade Robinson.
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For Better Or Worse explores the lows of depression for peers and diverse denizens of this fast moving challenging world. It's on Leach's 2018 second album Death & Taxes. “If it starts one conversation, then it's done its job,” says Leach. “Without tiptoeing around the subject, Better or Worse is about personal anxiety and depression, something that I have personally been struggling with for as long as I can remember. It's about dealing with living with your own high expectations of what life is supposed to be.” |
It was musically conceived and written around a strong “slap you in the face” outlaw guitar riff Leach found himself composing one night.
“I looked through my notebook and found some scribble, “Tell me is it getting better or is it getting worse?” that I had written maybe a month or two earlier,” Leach recalled.
“From that idea, I really dug into my own struggles and issues with time, age and having to make important calls in life that not only impact yourself, but others, and having to constantly question your own decisions and decision making.”
“If it sounds like I'm not having a good time singing this song, it's because it's emotionally really hard to sing. For me, in my own song-writing, music can either act as therapy or bring issues to light that I am not consciously aware of until writing it down. Depending on the day I hear or play Better Or Worse the emotional response bounces, but it always totally kicks my arse!”
Leach also appeared on Nu Country with his Death & Taxes video at Echuca railway station and the Murray River dock where the Emmylou paddle steamer sails from.
His car broke down in the bush but he was rescued by a blonde belle in his Turn Back Jimmy Creek video.
“I had just released my first EP and was in the car with my family travelling home overnight from the 2017 Tamworth Country Music Festival,” Leach recalled.
“It was a really long drive home through the night and about seven to eight hours into the drive we went past a little causeway creek called Turn Back Jimmy Creek and the inspiration for a tribute to the travelling musician song kind of just happened instantly. It's pretty funny because I didn't really plan on it, but this song really opened the flood gates for me to get started working on this record.”
Kiewa Valley singer Greta and Shipwreck coast guitarist-singer Lee Sonny Boy Morgan perform on the album, produced, engineered and mixed by Tyson Fish of The Alamo in Melbourne .
Further info - https://www.garethleach.com/
HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR
We need your support in Nu Country TV's 41st series with Australian record companies and artists teaming to ensure our survival.
You can join Watling & Bates as members and win their 13 track CD Small Town Tales.
Also Kip Moore's third album Slowheart , thanks to EMI promotions chief Dave Parker, and Blake Shelton's 12th CD If I'm Honest from Karen Black and Tony Midolo at Warner Music .
We also have other CDS by major artists you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing membership.
They include Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Gary Allan, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church and late larrikin legend A.P. Johnson.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for details.